THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
Drawn by A. H. Bumstead
A SKETCH MAP OF AFRICA SHOWING DARFUR
They look for all the world like wooden
whip tops upside down.
Eight long branches are placed with
ends on the ground, tied together in the
center, and laced round with smaller
branches until the structure looks like an
army bell tent. This is the roof, which
is then thatched with millet straw from
the bottom upward and tied together
tightly at the top into the little tuft.
This superstructure is then raised up
onpolessetinacirclewithaVatthe
top, standing about four feet out of the
ground. The sides are then thatched and
the palace is ready for occupancy. Doors
and windows are a trouble, owing to the
constant wind that blows in the sand at
all times of the day and night; so win
dows are dispensed with, and a kind of
hurdle, placed on the windward side,
serves for a door.
A cavalcade of horse, infantry, and
camel men, led by two British officers,
bronzed and burnt by months of trekking,
filed slowly through Um Kedada on its
long journey from El Fasher to Khartum.
As the eye traveled from end to end of
the long brown line, it was arrested by a
wonderful blaze of color in the center of
the column.